A proxy service set up by the U.K. Pirate Party providing access to The
Pirate Bay file-sharing site has been shut down. The closure follows legal
pressure on individual party executives from the British Phonographic Industry
(BPI) trade body.

The fringe political organization, the Pirate Party (which has no affiliation
to the Pirate Bay), had provided access to the proxy from its website. It was
set up after an
order from the English High Court in April which forced the main U.K.
Internet service providers to block their subscribers from accessing The Pirate
Bay.

After launching the proxy, the Pirate Party website’s popularity skyrocketed.
According to monitoring service Alexa, prior to the proxy’s launch the site was
ranked 1,943 in the UK.
It then jumped to 147 – higher than the likes of Netflix, the Huffington Post
and the NHS.
At the beginning of December, the BPI wrote to Pirate Party UK leader Loz
Kaye to request the proxy be shut down.
Mr Kaye refused, prompting the music industry body to instruct its solicitors
to contact the party’s executive members individually to warn of possible legal
action.

The Pirate Party has now agreed to comply with the BPI’s request and has
removed the proxy from its site. Mr. Kaye told the BBC that challenging the BPI
in court would have been “financially impossible”.